engleski

Performing the Revolution: Carnival as Conflict Prevention

A new step in the interpretation of the Carnival period is possible in the controversial scope of biopolitics. Taken biopolitically, Carnival is a double-edged sword: it can help the oppressor to reduce or redirect the political tension, and it can help the oppressed to endure the pressure - or to oppose it and protest unpunished. The carnival use of bare (or naked) life and the human body against the norms and social conventions is obvious. The impact on the ruling order is only a matter of measure: a successful vaccination or a deadly poison. In the book La comunità che viene (1990) Giorgio Agamben turns the old dichotomies (subject-object, potentiality-actuality etc.) inside out, exposing the innate potential in the zone of indistinguishability. The main idea is that “ whatever singularity” , which wants to appropriate belonging itself, its own being-in-language, and thus rejects all identity and every condition of belonging, is the principal enemy of the State. From that point of view, Carnival is a friend of the State. It strengthens the condition of belonging to the community (i.e. the ruling order) and thus helps the State to prevent the potential crisis - as long as the community still accepts the ruling order. If this is not the case, Carnival strengthens the “ coming community” in opposition to sovereignty, which reduces (through the state of exception) qualified life (bios) to bare life (zoe).

carnival; revolution; biopolitics; Agamben; singularity

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